Tractor Costumes

Our boys are obsessed with tractors, thanks to their Opa.  We have loader tractors, combines, wagons, balers (can you tell that I  have learned a lot about tractors too?).  So for Halloween they wanted to be farmers - one driving a FORD tractor for Opa, and the other two driving John Deere - just to bug Opa. :)

We cut a large square in the back half of the bottom of file boxes. We taped off the coloured stripe with painter's tape.  The boys painted a few coats of paint and I did some touch-ups.    The wheels were just cicrcles cut from more cardboard and I made some v-shaped notches in each of them.  I just glued them on, but it would have been nice to use some sort of fastener to have them turn easily.

We glued some juice can lids for the lights and glued a toilet paper roll on top.  I cut up an old pair of pants and sewed it into strips for their shoulder straps. Note: because of the weight of the front of the boxes, they tended to tip forward and I had to pin the straps to the shirts to keep them upright.  Not quite sure what I would have done differently to fix it.

The boys loved their costumes.  Some plaid shirts, jeans and rubber boots completed the look.  We went to the mall to do some extra trick-or-treating so they could enjoy the costumes a little more.  I took along extra safety pins and duct tape in case anything fell off...which it did.

I was inspired by this picture on Pinterest http://www.geekmom.com/tag/cardboard-crafts/  This was fun to do and great for the kids to help with, but it took a long time.  Making one tractor for one child wouldn't have been too much work, but three tractors takes quite some time.  We loved the finished product, though.